American-born Anna Vorontosov teaches school in a remote, primitive section of northern New Zealand. Her experimental teaching methods have won her the love and affection of her pupils and their parents and the admiration of the unhappily married school inspector, Abercrombie. Her personal life, however, is less secure; frightened of love and sexually inhibited, she has always been aloof with men. Eager to break down this barrier is Englishman Paul Lathrope, a somewhat irrational and immature fellow teacher who aspires to be a singer. Though Anna is attracted to him, she refuses to submit to his advances.
Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.
Set in 1965, a true story of one man’s struggle to bring rock music to a nation, an iconic New Zealand story with a universal ‘David and Goliath’ theme. The youth will find it incredible this actually happened and existed as part of New Zealand society in the 1960′s. It’s a titanic struggle for freedom and ‘the choice to choose’.
How the tragic death of one man triggered a David and Goliath battle between two Allies that echoed around the world and became the catalyst to end nuclear testing in the Pacific.
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.
It is New Zealand 1959. Teen swimmer Alex Archer has to battle set backs, intense rivalry and personal tragedy in her bid to win selection for the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.
Two best friends must navigate the tough streets of South Auckland to buy a bottle of milk.
On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.
Paul (Macfadyen), a prize-winning war journalist, returns to his remote New Zealand hometown due to the death of his father, battle-scarred and world-weary. For the discontented sixteen-year-old Celia (Barclay) he opens up a world she has only dreamed of. She actively pursues a friendship with him, fascinated by his cynicism and experience of the world beyond her small-town existence. But many, including the members of both their families (Otto, Moy), frown upon the friendship and when Celia goes missing, Paul becomes the increasingly loathed and persecuted prime suspect in her disappearance. As the violent and urgent truth gradually emerges, Paul is forced to confront the family tragedy and betrayal that he ran from as a youth, and to face the grievous consequences of silence and secrecy that has surrounded his entire adult life.
The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle—a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.
A team from the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb's Crunchy Delights descends on Earth, planning to make human flesh the newest taste sensation. After they wipe out the New Zealand town Kaihoro, the country’s Astro-Investigation and Defense Service (AIaDS) is called in to deal with the problem. Things are complicated due to Giles, an aid worker who comes to Kaihoro the same day to collect change from the residents. He is captured by the aliens, and AIaDS stages a rescue mission that quickly becomes an all-out assault on the aliens’ headquarters.
The Pa Boys is an energetic, uplifting road movie capturing the best of New Zealand's culture, beauty, talent and music, whilst exploring themes of identity, friendship and discovering your roots.
Ordinary people find extraordinary courage in the face of madness. On 13–14 November 1990 that madness came to Aramoana, a small New Zealand seaside town, in the form of a lone gunman with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. As he stalked his victims the terrified and confused residents were trapped for 24 hours while a handful of under-resourced and under-armed local policemen risked their lives trying to find him and save the survivors. Based on true events.
When a young female scientist discovers that the pharmaceutical company she works for had developed a cure for cancer years earlier, she attempts to release it to the world. Knowing that they make more money from chemotherapy drugs than the cure, the company does everything it can to stop her.
In November 1947 forty-one people died in a massive blaze that gutted the huge Ballantynes Department Store complex in the heart of Christchurch’s business district. This is the tragic story of New Zealand’s worst fire disaster.
Cumberland, 1348. The plague is spreading in medieval England. The remote village of little Griffin is also threatened. But the 9-year-old boy has a recurring dream that holds the key to a tiny hope of survival: a lake with a coffin floating on it. A white church with an iron cross. A falling glove. A falling silhouette. A torch tumble through a dark shaft into infinity. With his brother he recognizes in it a prophecy to escape the Black Death. So they embark with a few men on a journey to a distant cathedral, where they want to set up an iron cross as an offering to God. Her path leads them through a deep and dark mine shaft into an unknown land and completely outlandish time - into the present-day New Zealand of the 1980s.
Two brothers; Alama and Popo, arrive for the first time in NZ as Seasonal Workers, making plenty of money to take back home to their family in Samoa. But things take a turn for the worst when Popo steals Alamas' money and runs away. Alama is determined not to return home empty handed, but the only relative that answers his call for help is Bob Titilo; an aspiring private investigator in his 40s. Alama begins to doubt his decision when Bob's unconventional methods take them on a wild goose chase. This New Action Comedy is brought to you by the Makers of hit Comedies; Three Wise Cousins and Hibiscus and Ruthless.
Two young teenagers are forced to take control of their own destiny amid the chaos of a pivotal battle in New Zealand’s first land wars in 1864.
Race Across New Zealand was the first of three telefilms made for the Rocket Power cartoon series, first transmitted on Nickelodeon in the US on 16 Feb 2002, during the 2002 Winter Olympics. The plotline entails the Rocket Power gang's trip to New Zealand to participate in "The Junior Waikikamukau Games", with Otto Rocket competing against the son of an athlete who once beat his father Ray at a race in New Zealand (allegedly by cheating), and his sister Reggie's attempts to get herself noticed by Ray, who is constantly cheering for Otto exclusively. Sports featured in this telefilm include zorbing, mountain biking, tubing, dirtboarding, windsurfing, and snowboarding.